The most boring way to use an Oculus Rift is hilarious

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The Oculus Rift, and now Sony’s Project Morpheus, are arguably the most exciting devices in the entire gaming industry. While neither of them allow us to warp into a virtual world like in The Matrix or .hack, they’re both ushering in the beginning of the age of virtual reality. Eventually, the goal is for these devices to allow us to walk around immersive virtual environments, such as an Elder Scrolls world or even Proteus, and feel like they’re real. However, nothing is more real than the tedium of reality, so Tesco — a UK Walmart competitor — is showing off the immersion capabilities of the Oculus Rift by having it take users through one of its stores.

In the video below, two users get to strap on the Rift and go fake shopping. To make the recreation of walking through a supermarket and sighing while you look at the nutritional facts of brown rice more exciting, Tesco also hooked the users up with a virtual representation of soccer legend Pelé, on a very brightly decorated soccer field.

While we’re unsure if providing tours of your grocery-and-things store will get people to purchase their groceries and things there, associating your store with a fun, new technological experience is sure to not only raise brand awareness, but associate the brand with fun. Tesco has previously taken to technology in order to advertise itself — it used augment reality to make its print catalog come alive back in 2011, and even used Google Street View for an Easter egg hunt.

It would be amusing if the final evolution of virtual reality does achieve its goal, but achieves it so well that it just simulates regular reality, and people strap into the Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus in order to perform all of the tedious tasks that fill our daily lives.